Haze and holidays pull MapletreeCom Trust’s income up by 5.1% to $52.1m

Tenant sales ended a three quarter struggle.

The miry retail environment continued to pull the property firm downwards, but it seems like Mapletree Commercial Trust has pulled off a surprise from its sleeve.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, MapletreeCom Trust bucked the weak retail sentiment to improve in operating metrics.

“Shopper traffic [is] up 3.1% and tenant sales up 5.5%, reversing four and three straight quarters of decline, respectively,” Maybank Kim Eng said.

Meanwhile, Mapletree Commercial Trust’s management believes that the volume improvement is due to more public holidays than usual, including SG50 celebrations and the elections, and the haze driving traffic indoors.

“As for the office assets (32% NPI), occupancies for PSAB and Anson improved to 93.4% (1Q: 91%) and 91.8% (1Q: 87.5%), in line with the committed occupancies of 94.7% and 99.1%. As the lease expiry profile for the office assets are low at 0.5%/1%/10.5% (FY3/16-18),MCT will largely skirt the 2H16 deluge of office supply,” Maybank Kim Eng said.